According to the widely-circulated post shown below, Facebook will donate money to help the pictured child in exchange for liking and sharing.
The post, which features a boy on a hospital bed with an obviously distraught woman – presumably the boy’s mother – looking on. The post claims that, if you like and share the Page that published the picture, Facebook will donate ten rupees to help pay the boy’s treatment costs.
However, the claims in the post are false. The image has been stolen from elsewhere on the Internet. Facebook will not donate money to help this boy. Liking and sharing the picture will do nothing whatsoever to help him or his mother.
In fact, the post is just a scam designed to promote a particular Facebook Page. By launching this fake charity campaign, the owners hope to gather many new likes for their dodgy Facebook Page. Please don’t help these immoral and disgusting people by participating.
If you see the post, don’t like, share or comment as that just helps to spread it further and plays into the hands of the scammers. Instead, inform the person who posted it and ask him or her to delete it.
Sick child charity scams like this have been circulating on Facebook for years. There have been many variations of them. Keep in mind that Facebook will never donate money to help a sick child based on how many times a post is liked or shared. Any post that makes such a claim is certain to be a scam.
It appears that the picture first began circulating back in early 2018 via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The original Arabic language posts containing the picture simply asked for prayers for the boy and made no mention of donations in exchange for liking and sharing.
A screenshot of the fake charity post:
Transcript:
If you like and share this page then this boy will get ten rupees from Facebook which will be used to treat him. Please share and like the page. This is a mother’s request, please share it. If you can’t help you can at least share.
